Classes will be conducted in the workshop format. The following may be combined with the workshop:
- lectures and discussions
- small group work
- assigned reading and class presentations
- interviews with instructor
Students’ manuscripts will form the bulk of the course content.
Published texts, including short stories and/or one short contemporary novel.
General Objectives:
The student will become familiar with the narrative elements of the short story and the novel. The student will use these elements in constructing work, which will be presented for in-class discussion.
Specific Objectives:
Pre-writing:
- The student will learn how plots and characters are constructed.
- The student will learn to recognize through reading special problems, such as story beginnings, middles, and endings and the opening chapter of a novel.
- The student will consider personal experience and learn how this experience can be used in writing fiction.
Writing:
- The student will learn how to create dramatic tension.
- The student will recognize a variety of different modern and traditional forms and learn to use these forms in his fiction.
- The student will learn to develop writing habits consistent with the production of quality, written work.
- Over the term, the student will produce readable, well-structured fiction.
Reading:
- The student will read the work of published fiction writers to discover how those writers deal with problems of craft and form.
- The student will learn to adapt and use the narrative techniques discovered in published works of fiction.
- By participating in the workshop, the student will develop the critical skills necessary to judge the effectiveness of written work.
Revising:
- The student will recognize the value of revision as an essential writing process.
- The student will evaluate critical suggestions from instructor and peers, and incorporate these into the revised fictions.
Students are evaluated on the basis of four assignments submitted for class discussion; these may include a dialogue, a character study or portrait, a short story, and an opening chapter (and synopsis) of a novel, or free writing, all of which will count for a minimum of 60% of the course grade. Other evaluations will include class participation, in-class assignments, self-evaluation of submitted material, in-class writing assignments, participation in the workshop and/or a report on a published story and/or a fiction reading attended during the term.
Students are required to attend 80% of the workshops. A student missing more than 20% of the workshops without receiving prior permission from the instructor will receive a 0 in Class Participation. Leaving after the break is considered half an absence.
Textbooks and Materials to be Purchased by Students
The texts could include any of the following:
A text that includes representative selections from traditional and modern fiction, and/or, a text such as Three Genres, The Writing of Poetry, Fiction, and Drama, by Stephen Minot. (College publications, such as Pearls may be substituted for the anthology.)
A short contemporary novel.
A contemporary literary journal, such as Event.